Last Notification

A Short Story - Last Notification

Penulis: Cindy Trianita – UKI

The night sky was like a dim phone screen—black, cold, and full of questions I couldn’t answer. I was still staring at the screen, which displayed a single message from Darren.

“Sorry, I just miss you.”

The message came at 11:17 PM.
The number was exactly the same. His profile picture was still there—he was smiling in his signature way, tilted slightly to the left. But I knew it couldn’t be. Darren had died a week ago.

I thought it was just a bug, or a prank from someone who had gone too far. But the message was so… Darren.
He always said “sorry” whenever we had a small argument, and the word “miss” was something he rarely said—except when he was truly missing you. I typed a reply with trembling hands:

“Who is this? Please don’t mess around.”

Two checkmarks. Gray. No reply.

A few minutes later, my phone vibrated again. This time it wasn’t a message, but a voice note. Duration: 00:07 seconds. I almost didn’t dare press play. But curiosity always triumphed over fear.

Click.

“Don’t be afraid, Aira. I’m still here.”

That voice. Hoarse, but clear.
Darren.

I reflexively dropped my phone on the bed, covering my mouth with my hand. My brain scrambled for a logical explanation: a deepfake, a photoshop, or maybe someone impersonating me. But why was I the only one getting that message? I stared at the screen. The voice note had suddenly disappeared. As if it had never been sent.

Notifications That Shouldn't Be There

The next morning, I went to campus with my head full of thoughts from the night before.
My friends in the communications department were busy with their theses, as if the world was running normally. But for me, time seemed stuck between reality and something else.

“Air, you look really pale,” said Nadya, my roommate.
I just shrugged. “I didn’t get enough sleep.”

But all night long, I hadn’t stopped staring at my phone, waiting for another notification that never came. Until finally, that afternoon, when I opened the gallery for a class presentation, I found a new folder.
Its name: “For Aira 💕”

I never created that folder.
And inside, there was one photo—me sleeping.
Taken from an angle in the room that only one person could reach.

Darren.

That afternoon, I decided to go to Darren’s house—or more accurately, his parents’ house. The house was now empty, with black ribbons still hanging on the door. Darren’s mother greeted me with teary eyes. We sat in the living room, which was still filled with funeral flowers.

“Aira… thank you for coming,” she said softly.
I could hardly speak. But one sentence finally escaped me:
“Ma’am, can I see Darren’s cell phone?”

She looked confused, but finally nodded. She took the cell phone from the living room drawer. The screen was cracked, but it still turned on. When I opened the message list—the last number that appeared was… mine.
Last active time: last night, at 11:17 PM.

The same time I received his message.

***

That night, I cried alone in my room. Not just because I missed him, but because I didn’t know what was happening to me. I wanted to believe Darren was at peace. But that notification…
that voice…
that photo…
It was all like an unfinished message.

When I looked at my phone screen again, a new notification appeared. This time it wasn’t from WhatsApp, but from Google Photos:

“New memory for you: 1 year ago today.”

I clicked on the notification.
The video played Darren recording the two of us at the small cafe where we first met. He smiled at the camera, then said: “If one day I can’t say hello to you anymore… watch this video, so you’ll remember that I’m still here.”

The phone screen flickered.
And in the bottom corner of the video, a new caption appeared—even though the video had never been edited:

“I promise I won’t leave you, Air.”

The Message That Cannot Be Deleted

It’s been three nights since Darren’s last message appeared.
Three nights without proper sleep. Every time I close my eyes, that voice echoes in my head.

“I’m still here.”

I don’t know which is scarier—if it really is Darren, or if it’s not him. Today, I decided to talk to Raf, Darren’s friend who used to be close to me too. He’s an IT guy, and maybe he can help explain why a message from someone who’s dead can appear.

We met at a small cafe behind the campus. Raf stared at me for a long time before finally saying,

“Aira, are you sure the message is from Darren’s number?”

I nodded. “The number is the same, the profile picture too. Even… the voice.”

Raf massaged his temples. “That number has been inactive since a week after… the incident. I helped handle the number back then, along with his family. So it’s impossible for it to be used again.”

I swallowed hard. “But the message is real, Raf. I heard the voice myself.”

He was silent for a moment, then opened his laptop.

“I can try to check the data log. If there’s any activity, we’ll know where it came from.”

While waiting for him to type, I stared out the window. The afternoon sky was cloudy, gray like an old photograph. Inside the cafe, the soft music from the speakers felt too sentimental.

Raf stared at the screen with a shocked expression.

“Air… this is really weird.”

“Why?”

“The message you received has no source address. It’s like… it was sent from an empty server. No IP, no delivery record. The system calls it ‘ghost data.’”

I stared at him silently.

“Ghost data? Seriously?”

He nodded slowly. “It’s like… a message that appeared from an old cache. But strangely, the timestamp is real-time. That means… the message was sent now, not in the past.”

I felt my stomach twist. It felt cold, like something was crawling down my neck.

That night, I sat in my room with the lights off.
I kept opening and closing my phone, waiting for something.
I even wrote a message myself, just to test: “If you’re really Darren… give me a sign.”

No reply.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen.
Then suddenly, the room light flickered slowly.

I looked toward the desk. Our photo—which was usually tilted slightly to the right—had fallen to the floor. The glass frame was cracked. And just then, another notification popped up.

“Do you believe me now?”

My heart seemed to stop beating. I tried to type a reply, but my hands were shaking.

“Why are you doing this? You’re gone, Ren.”

Two ticks. The reply came quickly.

“I promised I wouldn’t leave you.”

I sobbed. “You promised… but you still left.”

This time there was no reply. Only the sound of my Google Drive suddenly opening on its own. There was a new file named:

“Watch before it’s too late.mp4”

I pressed play.
The screen displayed a video recorded from the front camera of my phone—from this corner of the room, tonight.
And behind me, in the video, there was a tall black shadow standing in the corner of the room.

I turned around spontaneously. Empty.

But on the phone screen, the shadow is getting closer to the camera—toward me. Until finally, just before the video stops, Darren’s voice is heard again, softly, almost like a whisper:

“Air… don’t trust me.”

The screen goes dark. And on my phone, all messages from Darren have disappeared. As if they had never existed.

I stared blankly at the now-silent phone screen. But for some reason, at the top of the notifications, a new message appeared, with no sender’s name, no app.

“Aira, it’s your turn now. I’m here.”

It's My Turn Now

I don’t remember exactly how that night ended.
All I remember are the last few seconds before my phone died — that sentence.

“Aira, it’s your turn now. I’m here.”

After that, everything went dark. I may have fainted, or maybe… something else happened.

This morning I woke up with a heavy head. My phone was lying on the floor, the screen cracked, but still on. And strangely — all my apps were automatically logged out.

WhatsApp, Instagram, even Google Drive. All empty. But in the gallery, there was a new folder. Its name: “Inside.”

I opened it. It contained only one photo. The photo showed me, sitting on the bed, staring at my phone screen… from someone else’s perspective. I instinctively looked around the room.

There was no one there. But in the window glass, I could see my own reflection—with something behind it.
Faint, but I was sure it wasn’t my reflection.

That day, I decided to go to Nadya’s house. I needed someone who could confirm that I wasn’t going crazy.
She opened the door with a surprised expression. “Oh my God, Air… you look like you haven’t slept in three days!”

I didn’t answer. I just handed her my phone.
“Take a look at this.”

Nadya stared at the photo in the Inside folder. Her face slowly paled. “Air… when did you take this?”

I shook my head. “I never did.”

She looked at me doubtfully. “Are you sure there was no one else in your room?”

“Sure.”
The voice was almost a whisper.

We sat on the floor of her living room. Nadya looked at me, then asked softly,

“Air, you still think about Darren a lot, don’t you?”

I chuckled, but it sounded bitter. “If ‘a lot’ means every time I open my eyes, then yes. I still do.”

She sighed. “Sometimes… the people we love can leave such a deep mark that our brains create things that aren’t real. It’s like an illusion caused by longing.”

I stared at her sharply. “So you think I’m delusional?”

Nadya was silent. “I’m just afraid you’ll get lost between what’s real and what you want to believe.”

***

That night, I returned to my dorm. My room felt cold and unfamiliar, as if it wasn’t mine anymore. The small lamp on my desk flickered, and my phone suddenly turned on by itself.

The screen displayed a new video recording.
The title: “01:32 AM.”

I pressed play with trembling hands. In the video, I was standing in front of a mirror—my eyes wide open, but my face blank. I spoke softly, with a voice that wasn’t entirely my own.

“You’ve been here long enough, Air. Now it’s my turn.”

I froze. That voice… came from my own mouth.

Then, in the final second of the video, the reflection in the mirror smiles—but I, in the video, do not. I immediately threw my phone to the floor. My breath was ragged, my tears falling uncontrollably.

“Enough… please, enough…” But when I lifted my head, the notification sound rang out again.
Ding.

A new message appeared.
“You know now, right?” I didn’t reply. I just stared at the screen.

“Darren’s calm now, Air. But I’m not.”

I typed quickly:

“Who are you?” The reply appeared almost immediately.

“I’m a part of you. The part you discarded when he left.”

I stared at the message for a long time.
My hands were shaking, my heart was racing.

“Now it’s your turn. I’m here for you.”

Three days without a message.
Three days without a shadow in the mirror, without a new folder, without a voice calling me in the night.
My room is quiet again—but it feels like after a big storm:
everything looks the same, but nothing is truly whole anymore.

I start to think, maybe all of this is just in my head.
Maybe Raf and Nadya are right. I just can’t accept the reality yet.

But the feeling remains.
Like a notification that can’t be deleted — a small mark in the corner of my heart that keeps glowing, waiting to be opened.

That day, I mustered the courage to visit Darren’s grave.
The morning air was cold, and dew clung to the white tombstone with his name clearly engraved on it.
I placed carnations on the still damp ground.
Then I whispered softly:

“I don’t know if you’re still here or not, Ran. But if you can still hear me… I’m ready to let you go.”

The wind blew gently, and for some reason, I could faintly smell the distinctive soap scent Darren used to always wear.
I smiled, for the first time without tears.

That afternoon, I returned to my room.
When I opened my laptop to delete all the old files, I found a new folder on the desktop.
Its name: “LAST.”

I stared at it for a long time. Part of me wanted to delete it without looking, but my fingers opened the folder instead.

There was only one video inside.
The thumbnail showed Darren’s face—smiling warmly like he used to.
I pressed play.

“Hi, Air.
If you’re watching this, it means I’m gone. I don’t know when you’ll find this video, but I just want to say one thing… don’t keep looking for me in the wrong places.
I’m not in notifications, not in photos, not in sudden messages. I’m in every thing you love, every thing you fight for after this.
Don’t let sadness make you forget how to live, okay?
I don’t want you to lock yourself away in a world that stopped when I left. I want you to move on.”

The video stopped there. I closed my mouth, holding back tears that couldn’t be contained. But through my tears, I smiled.
For the first time, I felt like I was truly hearing Darren speak, not from my phone, but from within myself.

That night, before going to sleep, I turned on my phone again.
All the old messages were gone.
Empty.

But one notification appeared—not from any app, just a small bar on the screen with the words:

“Thank you for letting me go.”

I took a deep breath.

“Thank you for healing me too, Ren.”

Then the phone screen slowly dimmed, and for the first time, I turned off all notifications without fear.

That night, I slept in silence—no sounds, no messages, no shadows.
Only silence… and a warm feeling like a final embrace that had finally come to an end.